


By Any Other Name

by HarkaSun



Series: 5 Months of Shadowhunters Challenge [10]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood is Not a Virgin, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Fluff without Plot, Husbands, M/M, Magnus Bane is a Little Shit, Neck Kissing, Pet Names, Sexy Times, Teasing, kind of, lots of kisses, seriously almost a sinful amount of kisses, theyre just soft and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkaSun/pseuds/HarkaSun
Summary: Magnus Bane is determined to find a pet name for his husband and Alec is being less than compliant. Maybe tonight, however, Magnus can finally convince him.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: 5 Months of Shadowhunters Challenge [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696138
Comments: 10
Kudos: 183





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> For @permetstu and @izzymalec's 5 Months of Shadowhunters Challenge on Tumblr
> 
> Week 14: Favourite Romantic Relationship  
> ↳ Magnus Bane & Alec Lightwood

“Good evening, sunshine!”

Alec sighed and shook his head in soft disbelief. “I don’t think so!”

He had barely gotten in the door, tired after a long day’s work running the institute, and Magnus was already shouting pet names at him. It had been like this since the ‘pup’ incident and Alec refused to rise to his antics. His husband was a menace when he wanted to be.

“But, sunshine, you’re the light of my life!”

“No, Magnus!”

Despite his defiance, Alec couldn’t help but smile. He dropped his files off in his home office—a room that Magnus converted for him so he might have a quiet place to work while he was home in the apartment—and shrugged his jacket off to toss over the desk chair before departing for the main room.

That was where Magnus’s voice had come from and it was where Alec found him, sat on the sofa with a book open in his lap.

Without makeup and forgoing all jewellery besides his wedding ring, Magnus was dressed down in his sleepwear: black boxers with an unfairly low-cut vest top to match. Above that, however, he donned a grey dressing gown.

This one was different from his robes, all silk and satin, and intricate embroidery. Alec loved this one the most simply because it was soft. He had been the one to convince Magnus that he needed a proper dressing gown, one that was so soft it was feather-light to the touch.

“Hey,” Alec greeted properly as he wandered over, sitting himself beside his husband on the sofa, lifting an arm to go around Magnus’s shoulders. His husband leaned into his touch. “What’re you reading?”

“It’s just some old age herbal remedies,” said Magnus, glanced back to Alec briefly. “It would bore you.”

Alec didn’t try to argue. His husband was a wonder and Alec was still is awe of his magic and his skill, but there were certain aspects that he simply couldn’t get into, herbs being one of them. There were too many plants in the world. No one could be expected to remember them all.

“How about angel?”

Alec curled his lip in disapproval. “No.”

“Angel is perfect!” Magnus insisted, turned his head to Alec with determination in his eyes. “It’s cute _and_ semi-accurate!”

“Sure, it’d be like me calling you demon,” Alec countered, tilting his head when Magnus pouted his thought. “You’re not telling me you’d like that.”

Magnus is quiet a moment. “… I’m considering it.”

“No, you aren’t,” Alec complained, one arm pulling him close and leaning to kiss the crown of his head forcefully, chidingly almost. “You aren’t so determined to give me a pet name that you’d accept me calling you demon. That’s why angel is absolutely off the table.”

Humming softly, Magnus shifted and went back to his book. He wasn’t done with his quest. Alec wasn’t sure he’d ever be done, but that wasn’t his main focus anymore. His attention was taken by his husband’s newly angled legs.

Thanks to that small shift, Magnus’s thighs were now peeking out from beneath his dressing gown, revealed right up to the fabric of his boxers, his skin dark and smooth and his legs crossed over one another under the fabric. Alec set a hand just above his knee, his thumb stroking absently at the skin. It was hot beneath his hand.

Warlocks ran hot. It was something Alec had grown accustomed to from his time with Magnus. During the summer, or simply on unseasonably warm nights, however, Alec sometimes found himself waking up in the morning on the floor, having rolled out of bed to escape Magnus’s additional warmth. He always took the duvet with him, woke up with it draped halfway over him. Magnus never noticed until morning, when he would chuckle at Alec’s mop of hair sticking out from under the duvet.

After mornings like that, Magnus would adjust the temperature in the loft, made it cold at night so Alec could be comfortable sleeping with him in their bed again.

The predicament of summer was nothing compared to the joy of winter.

Magnus was like Alec’s personal radiator. He was always warm. When Alec came home from work, returned from patrolling the streets on those unbearably cold nights, Magnus would hold him until the chill had fled from his skin. His touch on those nights was like fire. Alec loved every second of it.

He loved it now.

Magnus cast him a side-eyed glance, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “Should I put my book down?”

“If you want,” Alec murmured, not looking at him, his hand slowly creeping higher up Magnus’s thigh, his fingertips skating over warm, smooth skin.

Magnus uncrossed his legs without looking up from his book and Alec grinned as he realised that his husband was challenging him. Luckily for Alec, he knew exactly how to get Magnus’s attention. Their time as husbands—albeit brief so far, barely more than six months—had taught him much.

His fingers dipped lower to the inside of Magnus’s thigh, teasing under the edge of his boxers.

Magnus bit the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes, and Alec knew he was lost. His other hand went to Magnus’s waist, untying the loose belt of his dressing gown and pushing the fabric aside so he could slide a hand beneath Magnus’s shirt. Alec ducked his head, pressing his lips and the tip of his tongue to the now exposed skin of Magnus’s abdomen.

Magnus put his book down.

His hand came to the back of Alec’s head, coaxing him back upright. “You have... officially got my attention,” he said, staring at Alec’s lips. Alec didn’t mind. He was staring at Magnus’s too. “It’s very bold of you. Maybe I should be going for something a little raunchier…”

“Don’t.”

“Hmm, sexy? Would you like me calling you sexy? That is one hundred percent true at least; you can’t deny it.”

“You’re biased and it’s an awful pet name,” Alec murmured.

“I’m not biased, sexy baby,” Magnus whispered. Alec felt like he could have said anything in that tone—slow and sensual—and Alec would have agreed to it. He realised then that he might be a bit of a pushover when it comes to Magnus. He would do anything for his husband. Maybe not this, however. This might be his line.

“Gentle reminder that I’m a grown man and babies aren’t sexy,” he managed to get out, and Magnus pouted in soft thought.

“My Alexander,” he murmured, kissed the underside of Alec’s jaw. “So eager to prove his strength; as if any of it needs proving. My strong, beautiful husband. Such a _stud_.”

Alec took his hips, squeezing them firmly. “Do not start calling me stud.”

“Loverboy?”

“No.”

“Tiger.”

“Do not start with the animal things again.”

Magnus grins and leans in to press a lingering kiss to his husband’s lips. “I suppose I’ll have to keep trying then.”

Alec hummed and slid his hands around to Magnus’s back, pulling him in close to kiss him again, deeper now and more heated. Magnus’s own hands came to brace either side of Alec’s neck. His lips were soft and hot and they tasted of cherries. Alec sometimes imagined what it was like for Magnus to kiss him. His lips were rougher than his husband’s.

He wondered if that was a good thing or not. Maybe Magnus preferred women’s lips. They must be softer than Alec’s.

Regardless of his preferences, Magnus never complained.

“I love you,” Alec says when they break for air, “even if you’re an absolute menace sometimes.”

“Oh, I love you too, darling.”

Alec pouted his consideration, smiled into another kiss. “Maybe I’ll let you keep that one.”

Magnus canted his head and Alec watched shamelessly as his husband turned, swung a leg across his own so he could straddle himself over Alec’s lap. “You like ‘darling’?” he asked, leaning forward to mouth at Alec’s neck over the deflect rune. His knees pressed into the sofa beside Alec’s hips. “My darling Alexander…”

It was on pure instinct that Alec leaned his head back, giving Magnus untethered access to his neck. “I guess I don’t hate it,” he muttered.

“Shush, you love it,” Magnus uttered, kissed his throat. “Sweetheart.”

Alec hummed his uncertainty, his steadfast reluctance to let Magnus give him a pet name. He knew that he was just being difficult now. Magnus could probably choose whatever name he wanted and Alec would be compliant. Anything to make his husband happy.

“You’re considering it, aren’t you?” Magnus said with a smile, lifting his head to fix dark, glamoured eyes on his husband. “Sweetheart.”

“My mother calls me that sometimes,” Alec admitted.

Magnus kissed his forehead. “Perfect,” he said. “That means I’m definitely allowed to use it.”

He tilted Alec’s chin back a little further, the pad of his thumb stroking across the slope of Alec’s throat. The shadowhunter swallowed hard, making the warlock grin wickedly. Alec recognised that sharp glimmer in his eyes better than anything—that glint of brightness just before he dropped his glamoured—and he shifted as anticipation coiled a knot in his stomach.

“Sweet Alexander…” Magnus uttered, his true eyes catching the light, gold and gleaming. “Shall we retire to the bedroom, my love?”

“God, yes. Yes to the name. Yes to the bedroom. Just… yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the original Tumblr post: https://harkasun.tumblr.com/post/623191993333465088/by-any-other-name


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